


Mistletoe and Wine.

by TayBartlett9000



Category: Andromeda (TV)
Genre: Christmas, Christmas Party, F/M, Festivities, Friendship, Mistletoe, Romanse, Trance/Harper fun
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-01
Updated: 2018-12-01
Packaged: 2019-09-05 00:11:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,532
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16799827
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TayBartlett9000/pseuds/TayBartlett9000
Summary: Even on board the Andromeda, they celebrate Christmas. During a festive party in honour of the occasion, Trance and  Harper take advantage of the informal gathering to express their affection for each other. A bit of Trance/Harper festive fun.





	Mistletoe and Wine.

Harper’s memories of Christmas spent on Earth were pretty dim at best, hazey recollections at worst. For the most part, the foggyness of memory was due largely to the excessive amounts of alcohol that had been available at these long ago festive celebrations. But even though he could remember little of the Christmas parties spent on Earth, he could easily recollect the merriment involved and he could tell that this one was shaping up to be a pretty shoddy comparison.

Seamus Harper stared gloomily into his cup of wine and pondered on the hopelessness that had been this evening so far. In normal circomstances, Harper was sure that festivities were supposed to be jolly afairs, taking place in lavishly decorated rooms with a tastefully hand picked playlist of songs. This party included neither of these. The festive costumes had been replaced with suits and ties. The bounsy music had been replaced with auchestoral tunes for goodness sake, and the alcohol was in a seriously watered down state. Yes. A pretty poor party. No prizes for guessing who had planned the whole thing.

Looking around the bridge of the Andromeda, Harper scanned the faces of the people standing nearest him and realised that he knew absolutely nobody. To be truthful, he wasn’t exactly put off by this. Seamus Harper wasn’t the type of guy who liked spending time with people as boring looking as these. The man who had planned the majority of this party had also selected the guests. Again, no prizes for guessing who that man had been. He scowled. When Trance had suggested a Christmas party, he had thought it to be a good plan. Trance had always known how to bring about the fun when it was needed. Apparently though, her efforts had proved fruitless.

Dylan had taken over the invitations and the planning and as a result, deligates from every planet in the commonwealth had been invited. To make matters significantly worse, the only people whom Dylan had invited had been the insufferably arrogant ones. Admittedly, there were a few attractive women wondering around, but as usual, every one of those women seemed to have become interested in Captain Terrific. Harper hadn’t even had a look in so far. None of these women were part of the Andromeda’s crew, and the ones who were hadn’t shown up as yet. Harper was fed up. There was no doubt about it. He was fed up of being stuck on his own in the middle of this melay of confused talk.

Where in the hell was Beka? This terrible travesty of a Christmas party would be at least half way decent with a friend to while away the time with. Beka wasn’t a big party goer, so it was more than likely that she would choose to stay with him for at least a while, once she did show up in any case. 

Speak of the she devel, and she does appear. Even as Harper contemplated his woefully empty cup, the door to the bridge slid open and Beka Valentine entered. She glanced around the room at all the curiously haughty looking guests, she caught sight of Harper and made her way directly towards him. Harper lifted another cup of wine and offered it to Beka as she arrived at his side. “Here,” he said kindly, “I think you’re gunna need this.”

Beka lifted the cup of wine to her lips and sipped it gratefully. “I bet I do,” she agreed, “this place is dead.” She smiled at Harper who stared balefully back. “Enjoying it?” she asked in a voice that somehow mocked her happiness.

Harper shook his head slowly. “Are you serious?” he asked, “I’m telling you this, Vedrans clearly have no idea about how to hold a decent party. I’ve never been at such a boring waste of time in my life.” He looked across to Dylan who was dutifully entertaining the flocks of women standing at his side. “Dylan seems to be having a good enough time though.”

Beka nodded. She frowned at the two women and said, “that sounds like the usual sort of thing, yeah. Have I missed much?”

Harper shook his head. “No, not really. Two of those guys were about to exchange some words with Rhade but they broke it up pretty quickly.”

“Shame,” Beka remarked ryley, “a party’s not a party unless there’s a punch up.” She put her back to the wall. “At least Rommie lost the fight to get me into one of those stupid dresses.”She rinkled her nose. “And the tinsel. She was all for draping me in the stuff. Trance even suggested a Santa hat.” Beka gave Harper a knowing look. “You folks from Earth had some pretty strange customs.” She pointed at the women who were clad in long flowing evening gowns and smirked. “They look ridiculous. Does modesty mean nothing to them?”

Harper smiled at his friend. He wished that she would break her rule about refusing to wear a dress at least once in a while. He had often pictured Beka in a dress and such mental images pleased him every time. But Beka would always be Beka and he could do nothing about it.

Beka’s voice reached Harper’s ears as if from a great distance as the doors slid open a second time, admitting a beautifully dressed Rommie and Trance Gemini into the already crowded bridge area.

Harper now understood why it had taken the three women so long to get ready for what was after all a boring party, although he had the feeling that their efforts had been wasted. Trance’s long red dress flowed down her slender body like a scarlet waterfall and reached almost to the ground, the cascades of long red hair tumbling down her golden shoulders. Her face wore that all-seeing, all-knowing expression that Trance normally wore and she had even applied a little make-up, enhancing her looks even more. As for Rommie, she looked beautiful as always, her long white dress perfectly complementing her complexion. Both looked happy. Trance looked oddly expectant. Harper smiled at the other two women in his life. They did look good. Their looks could rival those of the women clustered around Dylan. They were putting a very good side together. That was for sure.

Trance was looking slightly pleased with herself as she took one look around the room. “It seems to be going alright for the time being, doesn’t it Harper?”

She turned those eyes upon him and Harper couldn’t lie. “I don’t think it’s gone as well as you hoped golden girl,” he said with false brightness, “the whole god damn thing’s gone pear shaped as the people on Earth used to put it.”

Trance turned her attention to the mistletoe. This was by far the favourite aspect of the hopeless party and it was easily the most ostentatious decoration in the room. Not a second went bye in which the mistletoe remained abandoned. It seemed that the multi-cultured members of Dylan’s group knew all-too well what this particular plant was used for. Everyone did. The legacy of this romantic plant reached far and wide apparently. 

“It’s going ok, I think?” Trance said with a giggle, as one of the women dragged Dylan beneath said mistletoe and began to ‘show her appreciation of the celebrations’ as Harper had tactfully put it. Beka scowled, clearly unamused by such persutes and Rommie disengaged herself from Harper’s tiny group and made her way across to Dylan, intent on breaking the couple up. Rommie had never been very happy with females taking over the looking after of her beloved Captain.

Harper remained in his corner, reluctant to join in the lack of fun. Beka, with equal reluctance, moved through the room and spoke with few words to everyone she met. Harper watched her movements carefully, noticing that she was pulled beneath the dreaded mistletoe a fare few times, though she managed to avoid every single one of their advances.

To Harper’s delight, a few minutes after she’d arrived in their midst, Trance returned to his corner to spend some valuable time. She stood by the table, lifting a wine cup and draining it slowly, frowning a little at the taste. Harper grinned at his golden skinned friend, glad to no longer be alone.

Trance glanced at her Earth born friend and asked brightly, “fancy a dance, Harper?”

Harper didn’t have to think for very long about that one. Harper had never been much of a dancer. But Trance was a friend, was she not? Of course he could spare a few minutes for a dance with this particular woman. No one could ever deny Trance Gemini anything. She had that way about her, Harper supposed.

Trance led Harper onto the dance floor and they began to slowly circle the couples dancing around them. Trance let out a soft laugh as Harper layed a hand gently upon her shoulder and he smiled back at his pretty golden companion. She was a graceful dancer, was his Trance. She spun and wove around and between the other dancing couples and though Harper considered his own steps clumsy in comparison with those of Trance, he knew by the stares they were receiving that the pair were obviously doing something right. People smiled at them as the two passed and Trance seemed all-too aware of the avid attention they were getting.

“How are you enjoying the party now Harper?” she asked kindly, steering Harper further into the dancing crowd.

“I admit, it’s beginning to look up a little,” he told her calmly, eyes fixed souly on the face of his alien friend and thus completely oblivious of what was going on or where Trance Gemini had led him. Her face held an expression that Harper had seen many times before. Trance was planning something. 

Trance was far from unaware of their situation however. Tapping her friend on the shoulder she said, “look up, Harper. I want to show you something.”

Harper glanced upwards as his friend had requested, and felt a knot of sudden nervousness twisting in his gut. ‘Oh dear,’ he said to himself, ‘she hasn’t, has she?’

But she had, apparently. He and Trance were standing directly beneath that damned mistletoe and Harper knew what his friend wanted of him. Why else would she have steered him towards this precise spot. She was a crafty one too, that Trance.

“Eh…” Harper said awkwardly. He rolled is tongue around his suddenly dry mouth, knowing not how he would be able to get out of this one. He tried again to speak. “Eh…”

Trance it seemed, had decided to take matters into her own hands as before Harper could blink, she had fulfilled the act that was supposed to take place beneath that piece of festive plantlife.

Harper had never been kissed beneath the mistletoe before, though he had tried of course, and thus he had nothing to compare this kiss with. It was an all-too brief kiss, only a second long, but Harper would keep that beautiful memory with him always. Trance pulled away with a soft laugh and said in her sweetest voice, “happy Christmas Seamus Harper.”

Harper could say nothing. He simply stared at his friend in bewilderment. Had Trrance been planning this surprise mistletoe based attack all along? Trance very rarely did something for no reason. But he cared not for her motives at this point. The fact that he had finally managed to share an intimate moment with his friend without having to be the one to ask was more than enough for him.

Trance too was feeling curiously uforic as she led Harper back into the throng of people continuing on in their slow dance. She had indeed planned that moment, had planned it many times in fact. Trance had spent many of her interlocking timelines on board the Andromeda with Harper and the rest of his crew and each time this festive party had been planned, she had tried and failed to get Harper under the mistletoe. Trance, though confident in many things, had never known what to say to convince Harper that she considered the engineer to be more than a simple comrade and ship mate. A kiss beneath the mistletoe was the only way she knew how to express her feelings, or at least, the only way Harper would have been able to understand.

Now she had done it. A warm glowing feeling was expanding inside Trance’s chest and as she danced the slow waltz with Seamus Harper, she reflected upon her more or less unique position. Trance had always been able to twist timelines and shape futures to suit her will. Perhaps in a new timeline, she would again be able to share this small but significant moment with the man who had been her greatest ally and friend in this long life. Strictly speaking, her people were not generally allowed to use their universe given powers to their own ends, but surely everyone deserved to be happy. Trance thought she did.

Harper was happy. Dancing with this golden skinned beauty in his arms, he felt curiously light as if he was made of nothing but air.

It had taken Harper a long time to come to trust the golden version of Trance Gemini. He had created such a strong bond with the purple girl who had stolen every heart on board the Andromeda, and when she had departed to be replaced with this golden goddess, he hadn’t at all been sure what to do, say or even think. But dispite the fragmentation of their friendship, golden Trance had taken the place of her purple counter-part in his affections. He was glad of this. Harper had never wished to be at odds with Trance, and now it seemed that the friendship between the golden skinned alien and her Earth born companion had been sealed, despite the confusing difference between golden Trance and purple Trance. 

The party was slowly winding down and people were departing, either to their own ships or to the crew quarters on board the Andromeda. And still Harper and Trance were dancing. Andromeda was continuing to play the well chosen playlist and Trance knew that she would only stop when her crew wished her to. Harper knew that midnight had long since come and gone but they remained on the dance floor, ignoring all that was going on around them and talking in low voices. They passed beneath the lights glowing different colours above their heads, the bulbs reflecting off Trance’s golden skin and dazeling Harper as he led her round the dance floor. Each new that the night had no need to end any time soon. Harper knew that Trance would remain with him as long as he desired it. And he desired it alright.

The doors to the bridge closed for the final time and they realised that for the first time that evening, they were alone, completely aloen. Trance once again led Harper across to the mistletoe that hung over the room. They was certainly no need to go to bed yet. Was there?


End file.
